Three Generations of Chinese Sauces: Meet Lian How, Uncle Chen, and DOU

For more than 60 years, Union Food Co. has been making and supplying the sauces, sesame oils, sesame pastes, spices, seasonings, and pantry staples behind Chinese food in America.

What began with our family making chili sauce in Taiwan has grown into three generations of Chinese food manufacturing and three distinct brands: Lian How, Uncle Chen, and DOU.

Each represents a different chapter of our family business.

Lian How preserves the traditional Chinese pantry. Uncle Chen is built around fresh chili sauces. And DOU brings three generations of our manufacturing experience into a new generation of retail-ready Chinese pantry staples.

Different brands. Same family. Same obsession with making the food ourselves.

Lian How: The Traditional Chinese Pantry

Lian How is the foundation.

For decades, the brand has supplied Chinese restaurants, Asian grocery stores, foodservice customers, and home kitchens with the ingredients at the heart of Chinese cooking.

The assortment spans pure sesame oil, stone-ground sesame oil, black sesame oil, sesame paste, black sesame paste, hot bean sauce, fermented broad bean paste, sweet flour paste, chili oil, hot sesame oil, Chinese spices, seasonings, dried foods, mushrooms, garlic, onions, and tea.

Many of these aren’t simply products we source and put our name on. Their production is rooted in processes our family has practiced and preserved across generations.

Traditional Stone-Ground Sesame Oil

Our sesame oil begins with carefully cleaned sesame seeds that are roasted under controlled temperatures and ground into a paste using traditional stone mills.

Water is added to the sesame paste and the mixture is gently worked to separate the sesame oil from the solids. The oil rises naturally before being collected and allowed to settle.

It’s slower than simply pressing oil from the seed, but our family has continued using the stone mill method because of the deeply toasted aroma and flavor it produces.

The same roasting and stone-grinding expertise extends to our sesame paste and black sesame paste, foundational ingredients for Chinese noodles, hot pot dipping sauces, dressings, marinades, desserts, and countless restaurant applications.

Fermented Chinese Sauces and Bean Pastes

Fermentation is another important part of the Lian How pantry.

Our family learned the Gangshan tradition of sauce making in Taiwan, where our earliest fermented chili and bean sauces were developed.

Products such as hot bean sauce, fermented broad bean paste, and sweet flour paste rely on time, fermentation, and carefully developed processes to create their characteristic depth.

These are the quiet workhorses behind countless Chinese dishes—from Sichuan-style braises and stir-fries to noodles, dipping sauces, marinades, and roasted meats.

For generations, these were ingredients primarily known by Chinese restaurant kitchens and households.

We think they deserve a much bigger audience.

Uncle Chen: Fresh Chili Is the Point

If Lian How represents tradition, Uncle Chen represents chili.

Uncle Chen was developed around fresh chili sauces with big flavor, vibrant color, garlic, acidity, and heat.

The range includes fresh chili sauce, chili garlic sauce, extra-hot chili sauce, regular chili sauce, and sriracha chili sauce.

Rather than treating heat as the only objective, these sauces are built around the flavor of the pepper itself.

Chili Garlic Sauce

Our chili garlic sauce combines fresh chili peppers and garlic into a bold, versatile condiment made for everything from noodles and dumplings to stir-fries, marinades, eggs, rice, and dipping sauces.

It’s the kind of sauce restaurant kitchens go through quickly because it doesn’t have one prescribed use.

Sriracha Chili Sauce

Our sriracha balances fresh chili flavor with garlic, sweetness, acidity, and heat.

Today, sriracha might be found on everything from pho and fried rice to eggs, burgers, pizza, and sandwiches. That evolution is exactly what we love about pantry ingredients: once a great sauce reaches the table, people decide what it becomes.

Uncle Chen has always been about giving them something worth reaching for.

DOU: Chinese Pantry Staples for the Modern Shelf

DOU is our newest brand, but it’s built on the oldest part of our business.

After decades of manufacturing Chinese sauces and pantry staples for restaurants and Asian grocery stores, we wanted to build something specifically for today’s everyday consumer.

That’s DOU.

The products come from three generations of manufacturing knowledge, but the experience around them is different: modern packaging, approachable education, retail-ready formats, and a brand designed to introduce foundational Chinese ingredients to a much broader pantry.

Our launch collection includes toasted sesame oil, hot sauce, and chili oil, each representing a different generation of our family.

The sesame oil carries forward a recipe and process preserved since our grandfather’s generation. The hot sauce comes from the next generation of our family. And our chili oil brings that manufacturing knowledge somewhere new, pairing chili and Sichuan peppercorn with extra virgin olive oil.

DOU isn’t about reinventing Chinese ingredients.

It’s about giving them the shelf presence they deserve.

More Than Sauces: The Union Food Pantry

Across Union Food Co., our assortment extends well beyond our three core sauce brands.

We manufacture, source, pack, and distribute an extensive range of Chinese ingredients and Asian pantry staples for restaurants, grocery stores, distributors, foodservice operators, and retail customers.

Sesame Oils and Chili Oils

Our oil selection includes 100% pure sesame oil, traditional stone-ground sesame oil, black sesame oil, Chinese sesame oil, chili oil, and hot sesame oil.

Sesame oil is one of the foundational aromatic oils of Chinese cooking, used to finish noodles, soups, dumpling fillings, vegetables, marinades, dipping sauces, and countless other dishes.

Chili oil brings heat and aroma to everything from mapo tofu and noodles to hot pot dipping sauces and dumplings.

Chinese Spices and Seasonings

Union Food Co. also carries an extensive selection of Chinese spices, Asian seasonings, ground spices, whole peppercorns, white pepper, black pepper, cayenne pepper, chili flakes, curry powder, cumin, mustard powder, garlic, and onion.

These are everyday ingredients for both professional restaurant kitchens and home cooking.

Dried Chinese and Asian Foods

Our pantry assortment also includes dried shiitake mushrooms, flower mushrooms, black fungus, white fungus, wood ear mushrooms, dried lily flowers, bamboo fungus, dried seaweed, dried garlic, dried onions, and other Asian dried foods.

Dried ingredients have been staples of Chinese cooking for generations because they offer long shelf life while bringing concentrated flavor and distinctive texture to soups, braises, stir-fries, and other dishes.

Chinese Tea

Our tea assortment has included green tea, black tea, oolong tea, jasmine tea, and organic tea products, connecting another important part of the Chinese pantry and dining table to our broader assortment.

Made for Restaurants, Grocery Stores, and Retail

Union Food Co. has spent decades serving the infrastructure behind Chinese food in America.

Our products have been used by Chinese restaurants, Asian restaurants, hot pot restaurants, grocery stores, Asian supermarkets, foodservice distributors, wholesalers, chefs, and home cooks.

That gives us an unusual perspective.

We’re a Chinese food manufacturer, but we’re also a wholesale Asian food supplier and distributor. We understand foodservice-sized products and restaurant kitchens, but we’re increasingly bringing that same manufacturing expertise into consumer packaged goods and mainstream retail.

Our operations now stretch across the United States, including the San Francisco Bay Area, Southern California, and New Jersey, helping us serve customers on both coasts.

Three Brands, Three Generations, One Family

Lian How, Uncle Chen, and DOU aren’t three unrelated brands.

They’re three expressions of the same family business.

Lian How protects the traditional pantry: sesame oil, sesame paste, fermented bean sauces, spices, and the ingredients Chinese kitchens have relied on for generations.

Uncle Chen celebrates fresh chili: sriracha, chili garlic sauce, and fresh pepper-forward condiments built for restaurants and everyday tables.

DOU takes that manufacturing heritage into modern retail, introducing a new generation of consumers to Chinese pantry staples through contemporary design, education, and formats.

Together, they tell the story of where Union Food Co. has been—and where we’re going next.

For three generations, we’ve worked behind the scenes of Chinese food in America.

Now we’re building the pantry for its next generation.